


In Bed At The Hospital

by demistarry



Category: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid
Genre: Fluff, Hospitalization, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 09:09:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11643393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demistarry/pseuds/demistarry
Summary: Houjou Emu got a little ahead of himself going after the bugsters, with serious consequences.  Everyone misses him at the CR, but he misses being at the CR even more.  However, there's one surgeon that seems to be quite affected by his absence as well.





	In Bed At The Hospital

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place around approximately Ep. 38-39 as a short divergence or intermission from the canon series flow.

Emu’s eyes slowly fluttered open.  His vision was blurred, the room seeming to spin before him then settle down.  As his eyes became clear, he realized that he wasn’t in the CR, a place he sometimes fell asleep, or at home--this was the hospital.  The blue-ish curtain suspended above him, the beige-speckled color of the ceiling, and the beeping of machinery all clued him into the fact that he was not only _at_ the hospital, but _admitted_ to it.

He looked over and found the wires running into his arms, up to his chest, and fumbled for the button dangling from one of the ends.  One press was all it would take to signal one of the nurses that he was awake, needed assistance.  What he didn’t expect was the sound of hurried footsteps, and the curtain being hastily pulled open.  Poppy, in her regular nursing attire, had rushed up.

“Emu!” she squealed, and hurried to his bedside to hug his arm.  “You’re awake, we’re so glad!”

“What... what happened?” Emu asked, finding his voice to be quite hoarse.

“You sustained significant blood loss and internal trauma.”

This voice was steady and cool--Emu immediately knew it was Hiiro Kagami, one of the senior surgeons that he had trained under and a partner in the Cyber Rescue unit.  He looked up to see the man with his hands shoved in his pockets, staring on with a steely expression.  What was conspicuously absent, however, was any of Hiiro’s CR gear which normally hung around his neck.

Hiiro stepped into the curtained area, then turned and shut the curtain behind him.  He strode to the opposite side of the bed and, in perhaps as clinical a voice as one could manage, he asked: “How are you feeling?”

Emu frowned.  How _was_ he feeling?  “Not great,” he admitted, looking sheepishly down into his lap.  “I-I don’t--I can’t remember what happened.”

“Oh, it was just terrible!” Poppy gasped.  “The fight was Para-DX against you--alone!”

“You didn’t summon us,” Hiiro added.  “We found you afterward as he left.”

“So neither of you saw any of what happened?”  Emu frowned.  He tried to sit up more in the angled bed, but gasped when pain radiated across his gut.  Poppy gasped, and Hiiro quickly put a hand on Emu’s shoulder to urge him back against the mattress.

“Don’t move too much,” Hiiro advised.  He looked up and said, “Poppy, ask his attendant what medication he needs and bring it back.”

The woman skipped out, leaving the two of them alone in the curtained bedspace.  Emu felt the creeping hints of shame in the back of his mind as he looked up to Hiiro.

“I’m sorry for--for whatever happened,” Emu murmured.

There was silence.  Then: “It was foolish for you to pursue Parado alone, intern.”

His heart thumped shamefully against the inside of his chest.  Wasn’t he always getting called foolish by the more experienced man?  His fists balled up, taking a part of the blanket into them.  Emu just wanted to do his best, to save everyone with Game Disease... but it always seemed like his attempts were wrong somehow.  With all of his heart put into it, it still wasn’t enough.

Emu really didn’t feel like trying to rebut Hiiro.

“How long do you think I’m going to be recovering?” he asked, looking up at Hiiro submissively.

“Depends,” Hiiro said.  “If you’re careful, a fortnight.”

Emu sat straight up in his bed, then cried out from the pain that shot through his abdomen.  “A fortnight?!” he said incredulously.  “But what about CR?!”

Firmly, again, Hiiro pressed him back into the bed.

“CR will be here when you’ve recovered,” he said.  “Don’t sit up like that again--you’ll rip out your stitches and the doctor will be unhappy.”

Finally, Emu picked up on the phrases he was using.  Confused, he cocked his head at Hiiro.  “Aren’t you my doctor?” he asked.

At this, Hiiro seemed a little tentative.  His eyes flicked away for one second, betraying a soft expression before he looked back again.  “Dr. Fujiwara was put on your case.”

“But why?  Aren’t you the best surgeon in this hospital?”

The subtle, nearly imperceptible pursing of his lips changed Hiiro’s expression faintly.  “It was considered a conflict of interest, intern.  Not like that would have stopped _you,_ but unlike you I prefer to retain my professionalism.”

“How would it be a conflict of--”

“The point _is,_ ” Hiiro cut him off, “that I’m just visiting you.”

Emu blinked.  “Why are you visiting me, then?”

Silence.  Hiiro turned away, seeming to analyze the folds of the curtain intently.  Emu opened his mouth to speak again, but it just didn’t _feel_ right.  Was Hiiro trying to work up the words to say to him?  Or did he just plan to ignore his question?  Finally, the surgeon glanced back over his shoulder.

“Poppy Pipopapo paged me while I was on my break,” he said coolly.  “She wanted me to come check on you.”

_He’s lying to me,_ Emu thought, anger bubbling up in his chest.  He had never been so certain that someone was lying to him ever--and though he had no proof that Hiiro was being deceitful, there was something in the way that he refused to face Emu that just made it seem _wrong._  Before he could insist upon this, though, Poppy reentered the room and Hiiro took his leave.

*

In order to pass the time, Emu had someone stop by his apartment and bring him one of his handheld game systems and the charger for it.  But even this didn’t totally erase his boredom in the recovery ward, and he constantly thought about the CR unit and what was happening with Hiiro and Poppy.

Poppy was his most frequent visitor, followed by the director of the Cyber Rescue Unit.  Their concern was touching, really it was, but they never wanted to tell him much about what was going on in the CR--said it would make him worry too much.  The only one to talk to Emu about CR was Hiiro... that is, when he deigned to grace Emu with his presence.

He was allowed to do a little bit of walking around after a few days, but it was intensely painful and he didn’t have much stamina for it.  On one of these days, Emu took a long nap and woke to see Hiiro sitting on a chair in the corner of the bed area.

“Eh...?  Hiiro?”  Emu rubbed his eyes, groggy.

Hiiro glanced up from the file he was holding and neatly closed it.  “Intern, you’re awake.”

“How long have you been waiting here...?” he asked, shimmying to sit up in bed a little bit.

“Long enough.”  Hiiro was going to act like this was a sufficient answer.  He stood from his seat, leaving the file in the chair, and walked over to Emu’s bedside.  “I hear you’re recovering well.”

“Y-yes... I was allowed to walk to the cafeteria today.”  Emu fidgeted with the blanket across his lap.  “But I think I have to take it easy... the stitches ache.”

A small frown creased Hiiro’s even face.  “Did you pull one of them out?”

“No, no,” Emu shook his head.  “Just an ache.”

The concern doesn’t disappear from Hiiro’s face.  He grabbed a corner of the blanket and pulled it down, and Emu was too surprised to keep him from doing it.  Of course, there wasn’t much to see under the blanket--Emu was wearing a hospital gown.

“Let me examine your wound, intern,” Hiiro said.

Emu crossed his arms.  “I thought you weren’t my attending, Hiiro.”

“Please, be quiet.  The doctors are very busy, do you want me to take a look or not?”

_Geez... men._  Emu sighed a little, then pulled back the drape of his gown.  His physique, relatively toned for a medical intern, was marred with a long gash across his waist that was bandaged over.  Hiiro leaned down and ran his fingers across the bandage, feeling the moisture of it.  Emu quietly winced, but didn’t move.  The surgeon’s fingers were so gentle across his skin, examining the healing wound.

“Let me change this bandage,” Hiiro said.  He leaned over and pulled some supplies from the drawers nearby.  “This will be quick.”

“What are you--ouch!” Emu yelped as Hiiro jerked the bandage off his torso, tossing it aside into a nearby waste pan and beginning to stretch the fresh gauze over his wound.

“Sit still.”  Hiiro’s voice was commanding, but soft--Emu wanted to comply with him right away.  Feeling his hands at work on Emu’s injuries was such an odd sensation, combining his gruff demeanor with such delicate handiwork.  This was surely what made the man such a brilliant surgeon, right?  “You should be better now.”  Hiiro pulled the gown back down over Emu, and tucked the blanket back up around him.

“Thank you, Hiiro,” Emu said with a soft nod of his head.  “You didn’t have to do that.”

“To let the wound fester uncleaned would slow your recovery,” Hiiro said evenly.  He shoved the bandage into the proper receptacle and looked back to Emu.  It seemed that there were words on the edge of his lips, waiting to be spoken... but he didn’t say anything.  Instead, he approached the chair and picked up his file once again.  “You should get some more rest.”

“I will...” Emu murmured.  He watched as Hiiro lingered one more moment, then swept away with a flourish of the curtain.

_What a confusing man,_ he thought to himself.  The steely-eyed surgeon of the Cyber Rescue was good at heart--Emu knew it!--but it was so hard to divine his intentions.  At least he was willing to visit Emu at all.  Maybe it was just because he finally saw Emu’s value to the CR, but... maybe... it was because he cared about Emu.

He closed his eyes once again.  Thoughts of Hiiro drifted into his sleepy mind, and he once again fell asleep.

*

“It’s just not the same with youuuuu, Emu!”

Poppy lolled over the edge of Emu’s bed, one foot absently kicking back and forth.  Emu smiled graciously at her, laughing a little bit.  Surely it couldn’t have been _that_ bad, right?

“I miss being in the CR,” Emu said with a small nod.  “I can’t wait to get back and start helping cure Game Disease once more.”  There was a pause, and then, in such a soft voice: “How have the others been without me?”

“Taiga and Nico-chan are still trying to defeat Kamen Rider Chronicle, but Nico-chan has asked after you!” Poppy gushed.  “The director says that the CR seems terribly quiet without you!  And Hiiro...”  Poppy trailed off, putting a thoughtful finger to her chin.

This was where Emu was really interested.  “Hiiro?  Has he been okay without me?”

“I... _guess_ ,” Poppy said, though her voice was infused with uncertainty.  “He hasn’t been his _usual_ self, but he hasn’t been acting too oddly.”

Emu touched Poppy’s opposite hand, looking into her eyes.  “What do you mean?”

“He’s been much quieter than usual,” she said, “and he seems so distant.  Constantly busying himself, hardly even stopping for his usual sweet treats!  I think he’s worried.”

“... about _me?_ ” Emu asked.

Poppy gave a casual shrug.  “There’s lots of things to worry about, but that’s the only thing that’s changed!  Pleeeeeease heal up fast, Emu, and come back to us right away!”

He chuckled.  “I promise I’m trying my hardest, Poppy.”

*

It was late one evening.  Emu had been dozing on and off, but sleeping pretty hard since about 7pm.  He couldn’t really roll around very well, but he had found a comfortable position to lie turned slightly to his uninjured side.  The recovery ward had grown quiet now, with only the rhythmic beeping and humming of machinery around him.  It was soothing, in a way--it rather reminded Emu of his own apartment, with all his electronics quietly whirring in harmony around him.  It made it easier to sleep.

He wasn’t sure what caused him to wake, it might have just been his natural rhythm.  But Emu was surprised to roll over and see that his friend, Hiiro, had returned to his little room.  What was surprising was that he didn’t have a folder in his hands, and he was completely quiet.  Hiiro Kagami, genius surgeon, was asleep in the chair at the foot of his bed.

Emu had no idea why Hiiro was here, and not at the CR or even at home.  He quietly slid out of his bed, clutching his wound so it wouldn’t pull apart under the bandage, and crept towards Hiiro in the chair.  His feet padded softly on the floor as he reached the chair, and he leaned over a little.

“Hiiro... Hiiro?”  He gently shook the surgeon’s shoulder, causing the man’s eyes to flutter open.

“Mmm... intern...”  Hiiro’s voice was very soft, the kind of Saturday-morning-sleeping-in soft that Emu had never heard before.  It filled his chest with warmth.

“Hiiro, what are you doing here?” Emu whispered.

“Waiting...” It was clear that Hiiro was still in the realm of the sleeping as his eyes gently closed again.  Emu couldn’t stand to see Hiiro like this, curled in the chair--he would be sore in the morning.

Emo gently grabbed Hiiro’s hand and tugged on it.  “Hiiro, come on,” he said.  “Let’s lie down, okay?”

The surgeon obviously wasn’t quite awake, which explained why he slowly stood without complaint.  He shuffled Hiiro over towards his hospital bed, lowered the side, and then pushed Hiiro towards the bed.  Hiiro twitched his nose, then obediently sat on the bed.  With another gentle nudge, he was lying back on the bed.

_He looks so small like this,_ Emu mused.  Gently, he raised the side of the bed and then crawled in on the opposite side.  While it was a tight fit for the both of them, it wasn’t as tight as he would’ve thought it would be.  He curled slightly to lie on his good side, which allowed him to look at Hiiro’s restful face.

With a sigh, he settled his head into the bed and tried to go back to sleep.

*

The stirring next to Emu was what woke him up.  He opened his eyes to see Hiiro, shifting in the bed.  Daylight had not but recently broken, and the lighting around them was subtle.  Hiiro had rolled against the edge of the hospital bed, but finding that it didn’t give against his pressure he was beginning to wake.

“Hiiro...?”

The surgeon’s eyes shot open, and for a moment there was a panicked expression on his face.  “Emu!”

This was the first time he had actually heard Hiiro say his name and not just call him _intern._  It was briefly jarring, but Emu regained himself.  He reached out and touched Hiiro’s shoulder, which caused the surgeon to jump.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Emu whispered.  “Don’t freak out, okay?”

Hiiro turned his head to look at Emu now, his eyebrows knitting together in confusion.  He reached out and touched Emu’s arm tentatively, feeling at him as if he wasn’t yet sure what was going on.  Emu managed a small smile.

“You fell asleep over in the chair,” he continued.  “Do you remember that?”

“What--the chair?  Fell asleep?  I would never...” Hiiro trailed off, glancing over to the corner of the room.  A moment passed in silence, a silence which Emu wasn’t sure if he should break or not.  But then Hiiro spoke once more, saying, “If I fell asleep in the chair, I should still be _in_ the chair.”

Emu gave an awkward laugh.  “Well, I woke up and saw you there... and I couldn’t stand to let you get sore sleeping like that in the chair.  You’d wake up with a kink in your neck and your back would hurt and--”

“You didn’t have to do that, intern.”  Was that a hint of anger in his voice?  “I didn’t need you to do that.”

The smile on Emu’s face faltered.  “But--but Hiiro, I--”

“No.”  Hiiro held up a finger, silencing Emu.  “You have to focus on your recovery, not on anything else.”

He sighed.   _I was just trying to be considerate,_ he thought to himself, but Emu couldn’t hold onto anger at the other man.  Instead, he put his hand around Hiiro’s hand and gave it a squeeze.

“I’m allowed to be worried about you,” he said.  “I know I got hurt, but I don’t want you to run yourself too low worrying about me.”

Hiiro tried briefly to tug his hand away from Emu’s, but stopped after a few moments.  Emu realized that Hiiro’s hands were smaller than his own, and soft against his palm.  His hand had never touched the surgeon’s--perhaps it was Hiiro jealously guarding the tools of his trade--but he found it quite pleasant.

“Intern, I-I...”  Hiiro’s voice was quaking slightly, and they both knew it.  Hiiro swallowed, then continued: “Don’t worry about me.  Please.”  He averted his eyes.

“Poppy told me that you’ve been acting different,” Emu said.  “Without me around, I mean.  Has something been wrong?”

“No.”  That wasn’t a very convincing tone of voice.  “Nothing’s been wrong.”

Emu squeezed Hiiro’s hand and the other man’s fingers seemed to soften.  “Don’t tell me lies, okay?  I want to make you smile again.”  Had Emu actually ever seen Hiiro smile?  Once or twice... but maybe he could be the reason.

Hiiro’s eyelashes fluttered as he looked up to meet Emu’s gaze.  It was suddenly apparent that the two were lying very close together, nearly chest to chest, hips touching lightly. Their faces couldn’t have been more than a few inches apart, and Emu could feel Hiiro’s soft breath against his chest.  Emu pulled Hiiro’s hand into his chest, cradling it there.  His heartbeat thrummed softly against the other man’s fingers, and sped up slightly when Hiiro involuntarily gave a shuddering gasp.

“I... intern...”  Hiiro was... at a loss for words?  Emu had never seen him like this--even when he was falling apart, he always had something to say.

Emu leaned forward and gently pressed his forehead against Hiiro’s.  It was a gamble, hoping that the man wouldn’t jerk away--but it was a gamble worth taking, as Hiiro seemed to settle in even more at this.  Emu let his eyes close for a moment.

“I miss being in CR with you,” he murmured.  “Nothing is like being there with you and Poppy and your father... but I do miss you.”

“Do you...?” he asked uncertainly.

“Of course I do.  Hiiro, I... I really like you a lot.  You’re my friend.”

Silence again.  Emu felt Hiiro frown, and Hiiro’s hand cupped in Emu’s seemed to be shaking a little.  He tried to tug away again, but it was not very hard.  Finally, Hiiro gave a soft little sigh.

“I--I miss you too.”  He bit his lip.  “I wanted to... to see you last night.  I had time between surgery and the start of my shift, but I thought I would... wait for you to wake up.  It seems that was not very effective.”

Emu chuckled.  “Aww, that’s really sweet.”

“Don’t say that, it’s--it’s foolish.”

“Why would it be foolish?” Emu asked.  “You missed me...!  And I missed you!”

“Because it’s--” and now Hiiro cut himself off again.

Emu instinctively brought his hand up to cup Hiiro’s soft cheek and said, “No, please tell me.”

Hiiro’s breath hitched.  They were now locking eyes with one another, touching more intimately than they ever had before.  Had you told Emu he would end up in a situation like this just a few weeks ago, he would have laughed back in your face.  But being here now... it felt so natural.

And so it was only a natural extension of their intimacy that they slowly drew their faces together.  It was Emu who brought his lips in towards Hiiro’s, bridging that ever-so-small gap between anticipation and kissing.  Oh, and what a glorious feeling it was, how tender the moment felt.  Hiiro’s lips were perfectly soft, and he smelled... clean.  Emu rather liked it.

Hiiro slid his hand down from Emu’s chest and placed it on Emu’s hip, almost reflexively.  Emu liked feeling himself pulled in towards Hiiro, with the gentle touch of a man enraptured.  Under Emu’s palm, he could feel Hiiro’s cheek growing warm.

A kiss turned to kissing--chaste, controlled, but kissing nonetheless.  Emu would expect nothing different from Hiiro, ever the perfect doctor and meticulous surgeon.  When they finally separated, however, Emu’s face was more flushed than Hiiro’s was.

“I--I’m sorry,” he whispered bashfully.  “I’m--I don’t know what came over me, I--”

Hiiro put a finger over Emu’s lips.  “Quiet.”

That made Emu shut up right quick.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Hiiro continued.  “It’s... okay.”

“It’s okay?”

“Yes, in--yes, Emu.”

Now a smile seemed to cross so widely across his face, he was afraid it would tear him in two.  It felt so nice to hear Hiiro saying his name.  Something had just changed between the two that Emu hadn’t even realized needed changing.  Had they both been feeling this way?

Emu pulled Hiiro in for a hug, and Hiiro managed to tentatively hug back.  If he was lucky, it would only be a few more days until he was back in the CR... and maybe he could make Hiiro smile the way that being with Hiiro today had made him smile.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Ex-Aid fic, not to mention my first fanwork in a long time. I was inspired by the Florence + The Machine rendition of "Hospital Beds," which if you've never heard you should totally give a listen. I hope this fic is okay! I realize the little sections of it aren't equal length, but I wanted to just get it put out there. :)


End file.
